Spiritual Lessons from Working on a Farm (Part 3 of 3)

Over the past nine months, I have had the privilege of working four hours a week at a local, organic elderberry and blueberry farm. I wanted to do this for two reasons. First, through our homeschool connection, the owner expressed to me that he could use the help. Secondly, because the Bible are filled with agricultural imagery, I wanted to connect with that imagery by experiencing farming myself. So, what have I learned about the farming imagery in the Bible in relation to the spiritual life so far? Here are the final two lessons I want to share with you.

Pruning is very important for next years harvest.

Blueberry season is over. It is time to prune some of the bushes for next year already. Of course, this probably makes you think of Jesus’s instruction on John 15:1-2: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does not bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.” Jesus is taking a well-known farming fact from the wine vineyards of first century Israel and turning it into a metaphor of spiritual truth. Pruning in farming is a calculated, systematic practice of cutting back old branches so that new branch buds would form and thus bear new and more fruit next harvest season. Jesus says this is what God does with us in our spiritual lives. He purposely and specifically prunes certain areas of our life that are not bearing good fruit anymore, so that in the future, fresh fruit would appear. The fruit Jesus is speaking of here is godliness in character and deed for the good of others and to the glory of God.

Certain seasons of farming are enjoyable. Some are hard and hot.

Ok, this is obvious. Farming in July in Louisiana is hot. The heat zaps your energy, making the work even harder than other times of the year. However, in farming you can’t quit just because it’s really hot out. The farmer has to keep working hard to maintain the farm and continue to harvest any fruit that matures at this time of year. This is a great physical metaphor for the spiritual life in general, isn’t it? Have you found that in certain seasons of your life, living out the faith is “hotter and harder” work than other seasons? When the spiritual life is continually hard, it can be tempting to get lazy or even to quit. Yet, however difficult those seasons can be, we cannot quit. We have to keep persevering in the faith. This made me think of Galatians 6:9: "Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up." The Greek word “weary” here means “the state of losing heart, becoming discouraged, or lacking motivation to continue doing good. It signifies a spiritual fatigue where one might feel exhausted, defeated, and even "sick of trying". It's not just physical tiredness, but a loss of zeal and hope in the pursuit of good.” However, like the farmer, we have to keep working to “maintain the farm” of our spiritual life. It’s just a fact of life we need to accept, like the farmer does.

Over the past nine months now, I have accomplished some of what I sought out to learn by working on the blueberry and elderberry farm. I wanted to connect myself with all the agrarian imagery the Bible uses and see how the authors turn physical realities into spiritual truths. I hope you have enjoyed this three-part series with me. Sola Deo Gloria.